


0400 Hours

by SpaceWall



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Could be read either way, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e09 The Measure of a Man, Gen, Hugs, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25634131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: “Bullshit, Data,” he snapped, startling the android into silence with his swearing. “Human language is inapt to express how you feel what you feel.”--Since what he’s come to think of as ‘the Trial’, Will’s been having a recurring nightmare about what would have happened if he’d won. Data doesn’t agree on how Will should feel about it.
Relationships: Data & William Riker, Data/William Riker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 105
Collections: Star Trek Fics





	0400 Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fiftieth fic on AO3. Three years ago next month, I posted my first (also TNG). It was about Geordi/Data and Riker/Picard. Naturally on this, the anniversary, I had to post about some unholy combination of the two, so I picked one of my other favourite relationships in TNG, either platonic or romantic. I love the Data-Riker dynamic because Will so often treats him as just a sort of weird person he knows. All my love to the wonderful fandom that got me started on this bizarre journey, and I hope you like this thank you present. No matter my forays into LOTR or Star Wars, I haven’t forgotten where I came from. Promise!

“On screen!” 

Over the heads of Wesley and Lt. Cromwell, Will watched as the viewscreen in front of them shifted into Commander Maddox. Will could feel Picard tense up, leaning forward. 

“Commander.” 

“Captain Picard.” 

His eyes were focused on Will. “I called to congratulate you, Commander Riker. We did it.”

And then he held up Data’s head. There was blood oozing out of his eyes. 

“How could you, Will?” Deanna demanded, horror in her voice.

Will pressed his hand to his heart, feeling it pounding in the darkness of his room. 

“Lights, fifty percent.”

It burned at his eyes, but not enough to burn away the blood dripping from the corner of Data’s mouth. 

“Lights, eighty percent.”

Better. Will sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “Computer, time?”

“0400 Hours.”

Great. Just. Great. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, but sitting up didn’t help either. Nothing helped. It was the third night in a row he’d had the dream, and the only reason he hadn’t the night before was because he hadn’t slept at all. He needed help. This couldn’t go on.

“Computer, is Counsellor Troi awake?” She wasn’t. “Computer, are any members of the senior staff awake?” 

He’d been hoping for Jean-Luc. Or maybe Geordi, who had a good head on his shoulders. Instead he only got the obvious answer. “Lieutenant Commander Data is currently in his quarters.”

It wasn’t fair to put any of this on Data. He was the last person in the world who deserved it. But on the other hand… Will had almost ruined Data’s life, killed him, by pretending Data wasn’t a person. If it were Deanna, Will would have told her. If it were Jean-Luc, Will would have told him. And, now that the idea had come to mind, he needed to see Data. Needed to see that he was still on board, still himself. That Maddox hadn’t laid so much as a finger on him.

Resigned to his fate, he grabbed one of a few dozen identical uniforms from his shelf, and put it on. 

“Data,” he said with some surprise, when the android opened the door to him, “you’re wearing pyjamas.”

Data nodded slightly, with the sincere enthusiasm Will would have liked to shove down that arrogant bastard Maddox’s throat until he choked on it. No machine, nobody who wasn’t a person, would ever have said with Data’s deep sincerity, “yes, Commander. I have been advised that humans, and many other species, employ the practice of having dedicated nocturnal wear. You do not?”

If anyone else had asked, Will might have been embarrassed. “I do, Data. But since I was coming to see you, I changed out of it. You didn’t know I was coming, and couldn’t have changed. I guess I don’t know why I was surprised.”

“I suspect, as I am not human and do not require sleep, you assumed – quite correctly – that I had no practical use for Nocturnal wear.”

But that was just the problem. He’d assumed. Again. He felt the give as Data’s arm came off in his hand. 

“Are you alright, Commander?”

Data was standing there, in slightly baggy green pyjamas, with both his arms firmly attached.

“May I come in?” Data stepped out of his way in a nonverbal invitation. This alone was a sign of how much he’d learned about people. He did not have to speak to make himself known.

“Am I correct in thinking that the current hour is not one at which you would normally be awake?”

Oh Data. “Yes. You are. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Am I also correct in deducing that you are distressed at this time?” Data was better at emotions than he gave himself credit for, most of the time. Will nodded, just once, to let him know that he’d been right. “Is there anything I can do to assist you?”

As if he could ask something of Data at a time like this. “Just… let me look at you, for a second.”

Because he was Data, he stepped back and stood perfectly still while Will catalogued his sleek fake hair, his skin that did not hide or contain any blood at all. His familiar, bright eyes, awake and aware of the world around him. 

“Is this about the Trial, Commander?”

“Yes.” With that word, with Data watching him so intently, everything came spilling out. “I’ve been having dreams about your death. I know I said so before, but I think I need to say it again. I came far, far too close to killing you, and if you had died… it would have been my fault. I should have stopped. She ordered me to do my best, but she didn’t know anything about you. She had no idea what my best was. But I took that order and ran like hell with it and I’m sorry. At the very least, I should have asked for your consent before doing half of what I did. I acted just as badly as they did. If you feel… uncomfortable, with my command, then...”

He hadn’t thought through as far as “what then” 

“Commander Riker,” he said, “you have no reason to be concerned about my feeling uncomfortable. I do not feel such emotions.”

“Bullshit, Data,” he snapped, startling the android into silence with his swearing. “Human language is inapt to express how you feel what you feel. When I say that word, I don’t just mean… some ethereal passion that you can’t control, that arises without reasonable stimulus. I imagine for you, there’s a great deal more awareness where any feeling comes from than there is for me, but that doesn’t mean they’re not called what feelings are for your species. When I beat you at poker, you were surprised. It was a circumstance you did not anticipate and you were forced to re-evaluate your comprehension of the game. When things surprise me, I might not always know where my anticipation came from or what it means, or why I am surprised when it is broken, but I do feel it. Deanna isn’t human either, and I imagine she would tell you that her feelings are different than that again. She has far greater awareness of them and their mechanisms than I do, but also feels more strongly. Worf… well, there are a frankly ludicrous number of stereotypes about Klingon emotions and I don’t have the knowledge to speculate, but I assure you that his perception of the world is as analogous to mine as yours is. So perhaps it isn’t what I would experience discomfort as, but if you begin to find that you can’t trust my orders, my decisions, if you are more worried when I walk into the room, then you need to tell someone so that changes can be made. Because they will. I promise. Anything I can do for you, I will.”

They would probably give Will a captaincy somewhere, or another position as a First, if he asked for that. Data would be a brilliant First for Picard, even if he needed more practice with feelings, especially his own.

“You misunderstand, Sir. I was accounting for what you meant by my discomfort, rather than a direct comparison with your own. I do not feel such emotions because, as I have said before, I do not in any way blame you for your actions taken in the course of saving my life.”

Oh. “I think you should.”

“And I disagree.” Data looked closely at him, scrutinizing his every feature. “Why do you insist on subjecting yourself to this guilt that I do not desire you to feel?”

“I don’t insist on it, I just see you dead every time I close my eyes and it makes a man think about the things that haunt him. About what he did to cause them.”

“That sounds very unpleasant.”

“It is.” Will paused. He hadn’t come here with the intent of subjecting Data to a rant about his own feelings. “I’m sorry to bother you, Data. As long as you’re sure you’re well, I should go.” 

“You are not bothering me,” Data insisted, with rather less brightness and more determination than usual. “I am, however… concerned, for your wellbeing. If there is anything else I can do to ensure you that I am neither afraid of you nor damaged in any way, please tell me what it is.” 

He was going to treat Data like a person. Like Deanna or Jean-Luc or anyone else. Of course, he wouldn’t have worried nearly as much about their ability to say no. 

“Physical contact might help. But you shouldn’t be obligated–”

Data’s hand was steady on his upper arm. A grip that could have crushed his bones into powder, but chose not to. Will closed his eyes, and tried not to lean in to the touch. 

“Thank you, Data.”

“I am not a Vulcan, Sir. Physical contact may not be necessary for my function in the way it is for you, but it certainly does not impede it either. I might request that in the future, if you need such a thing from me, you ask.”

Will reached up, covered Data’s hand with his own, and was reassured by the fact that it remained solidly attached to his body. “Thank you,” he repeated.

Data was looking at him intently, when Will opened his eyes. “Any time, Commander Riker.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading <3 I love comments more than life if you want to leave me any
> 
> Also, Star Trek canon wants me to like Bruce Maddox (I assume, I haven’t actually finished Picard yet), but I think he’s a jerk, fuck that guy.


End file.
